This invention relates to display packages for video casettes and compact discs, useful in indexing and arranging titles and descriptive information available for review and selection by customers in the environment of a video rental and sales store. The invention also relates to a method for efficient organization of displays in such stores.
Video casettes and compact discs are normally packaged by the manufacturer in oversized boxes, and these boxes have become of substantial value to retail rental and sales storekeepers because the packages contain descriptive information concerning the contents of the casette or disc, and consumers find these packages essential in making a selection of a video or disc for rental or purchase. These packages are usually oversized to make it difficult for the potential shoplifter to remove the product from the store without being detected. However, the condition of the package has also become important, because the wholesale distributor usually will not accept return of the product without the package clean and in tact; it is also believed that the casette or disc cannot be sold or rented at the best possible price if the package is damaged, missing or soiled. For these reasons, most video store operators are very protective of the manufacturer's packaging and are concerned with maintaining such packages clean and unsoiled, although the business requires that the packages be available to the public for use in selecting a tape or disc for rental or purchase. It is that dilemma of the storekeepers who want to make these packages available for use by the consumer but retain them in good condition, that this invention speaks and seeks to solve.
Usually, in a typical video store such packages prepared and supplied by the casette or disc manufacturer (as the outside jacket of his product) are arranged on a shelf or wall display in the store. Where the retailer maintains an inventory of several thousand prerecorded casette and compact discs, the space problem for the store is magnified by the display requirements. Such a store usually must have several thousand square feet to meet the display space requirements, even though the inventory requirement for the store is very small, because the casettes and discs can be handled in a fraction of the total store space. These display problems are even more critical in view of variations in the manufacturer's package size and design utilized by different makers. There is considerable competition for display space, and each manufacturer tries to make its display package more enticing to the consumer, and that motive makes it even more difficult for the storekeeper to present an organized and convenient display arrangement. Further, some casettes are available for Beta video casette recorders and others use a VHS system, and each maker and system present quirks in the sizing and styling of the display boxes, emphasizing the need for a most versatile display system.
These problems in maintaining and using conventional display packages for video casettes and compact discs may be substantially overcome by the display package and method embodying the present invention. For example, a wall display shelving system popular in the video store business utilizing conventional display packages and methods requires about 260 square feet, or 32 lineal feet, eight feet tall, to handle about 1,000 video casette and/or compact disc titles, and even so, some display packages are too high for examination by short people, women and children, and other display packages are arranged on floor level shelves, making it difficult for some people to reach them. Using the novel display system embodying the present invention, only a small fraction of the store space is needed for display of the same thousand titles, usually about only six square feet, all at counter height convenient for most people to use.
Moreover, applicant's novel display system opens up to the entrepeneur possibilities not available with prior art systems. More titles can be handled in the same space. Space rentals on a per title offered basis are substantially less. Better and more convenient store locations are possible using less square footage. Other opportunities to handle related merchandise become available using applicant's system, for example, businesses such as convenience and drug stores, supermarkets and the like with applicant's system have the opportunity of marketing video casettes and compact discs, without causing special space problems normally associated with the use of conventional displays.
Applicant's display package consists of a special clear plastic envelope of sufficient dimension to contain most known video casette and compact disc display boxes. This novel envelope is constructed so that it is adequately rigid to be arranged upstanding in a display bin, but it is also suitably soft to permit easy entrance in and withdrawal from the envelope of the manufacturer's display package box and other indicia. The envelope also has seals and stops to permit the manufacturer's package box to be somewhat lifted so that the envelope contents can be easily read as a consumer flips through a number of similar envelopes arranged in a series one behind the other in a bin. Preferably, each envelope has suitable pockets for holding a header having indicia classifying the program contents, as well as other pockets for inventory and similar information. It is desirable for the envelopes and a suitable bin for holding them be dimensioned so that the bin can also suitably house the envelopes during shipment and then be used by the retailer as a container for housing indexed envelopes for use by customers browsing for their video casette or compact disc selections.